Sporting events have become a part of the American culture, oftentimes serving as a focal point around which friends and families gather. Fans hungrily devour sports information and discuss the latest game. To serve this ravenous interest, various enterprises have sprung up, including sports-oriented networks, websites and magazines. The goal of each of these services is to give each fan what he or she most desires: to be closer to the game.
Nowhere can a fan be closer to a game than by actually attending the game in a front-row seat. With a front-row seat, every nuance of the game can be seen and heard. Coaches and players can be overheard. Players can be heard shouting encouragements and discussing strategy. A front-row seat permits a fan to experience the game in a personal and dramatic way. Front-row seats are exciting. Unfortunately, front-row seats are not available to everyone.
Fans who attend sporting events, but are not lucky enough to possess front-row tickets find their experiences to be more remote. Small gestures by the players and coaches cannot be seen from a distance. The various sounds of the game go unheard. The shouts of players become inaudible. It is impossible to hear coaches and players discussing the game. Even the sound of a bone-crunching tackle cannot be heard. Quite simply, the game loses some of its drama.
To counteract the negative effects of distance, fans have employed many strategies. Many fans bring binoculars to aid them in seeing the visual nuances lost with distance. Other fans bring radios to permit them to hear a broadcast of the game. Radio broadcasts are not effective surrogates for a front-row seat, however. Radio broadcasts do not carry sounds collected from the field of play, nor do such broadcasts carry sounds collected from areas immediately surrounding the field of play (such as dugouts or team benches). Additionally, radio broadcasts are typically delayed so that they are not synchronized with the game as it actually occurs. An additional drawback of radio broadcasts is that they carry a narrative of the game, an often unwanted feature for a fan that is already able to discern the major developments of the game.
Some fans bring hand-held televisions to sporting events. Hand-held televisions also have drawbacks, though. They are small and require the fan to remove his attention from the field of play, instead turning it to the television. Additionally, the broadcast is delayed. Most importantly, when viewing a televised sporting event, the fan is receiving a produced version of the game, rather than a true-to-life front-row experience.
The inadequacies of radio and television broadcast are reflected in the attendance figures for professional sports. Many professional sports teams fail to sell-out a significant number of their games, leading to several undesirable results. Often, in response to low attendance figures, professional sports organizations are forced to lower ticket prices for seats that offer a less intimate game-time experience. Some leagues impose television blackouts with respect to games that fail to sell-out, thereby inducing further losses due to lost television revenue. Even if tickets are sold, non-attendance results in lost concession and souvenir sales. Low revenues—whether the low revenues stem from unsold tickets or from non-attendance—are also a major factor in the relocation of professional sports franchises. Relocation of professional sports franchises is troubling on two fronts. When a professional sports franchise relocates, the community that loses its franchise loses a source of community pride and entertainment. Additionally, professional sports leagues that permit its franchises to move often suffer from fan cynicism, with many fans choosing to turn away from the particular sport entirely, thus resulting in further lost revenue for the league as a whole.
To preserve fan interest in and attendance of sports events, there exists a need for a method or system for providing fans with an experience approximating the close, exciting, and personal feel of a front-row ticket.